Comfort In Public Transport

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3.2. Comfort in public transport In the process of decision-making, two questions systematically arise to the user of public transport. The first is a five-level question, which assesses the service availability (TCQSM, 2013). These levels are as follows: • Spatial availability at the origin and spatial availability at destination: if the service is too far from the origin or the destination of travel, the transit option will not be maintained. For instance, the average walking distance to a bus stop is 400m and 800m to a metro station. Beyond these values, transit is no longer a viable option. • Temporal availability: The frequency and length of the service determine its temporal availability. • Information availability: transit users need…show more content…
When the traveler is standing, it becomes difficult for him to pool his travel time for reading, working or just resting. Thus, the transit loses a potential of its attractiveness in favor of the private cars. In addition, congestion in public transport reduces the operability of the service since boarding and alighting movements take longer than expected. Besides, some harmful behaviors appear with congestion: people trying to block the doors to allow other passengers to get on the train, which further delays the service and disrupts its…show more content…
In other words, reliability is an indicator of punctuality and respect to headways. A delay in transit service involves irregular boarding and alighting movements: users who arrive early for a service are added to the late service passengers. Thus, transit service takes more delay at every stop and more passengers find themselves standing in the most congested conditions. Regarding the following service, it will be less crowded and ahead of its schedules. This phenomenon of "Bunching" (often used for the Bus Bunching) greatly disturbs waiting times, vehicle occupancy rates, comfort and balance between supply and demand (Luis Moreira-Matias and al, 2012). 3.2.3. Travel time Time spent in transport is very important in valuing comfort and the quality of transport service. This time can be divided into several sub times that have a different monetary value (Emile Quinet, 2013). For users, time perception is not the same each time. It depends mainly on how time is spent. For example, waiting time is perceived heavily in comparison to in vehicle time (the paradox of the bus - Murphy's Law). The same goes for time spent sitting, which is perceived differently (more onerously) from the same time spent standing. Many studies have been conducted to determine the economic value of time spent in transport (Hensher 1976; MVA and al, 1987; Wardman, 1998; Bickel and al,

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